THINK AGAIN: The Sample Series
The Sample series (David John Attyah + SA Bachman) are a suite of conceptual artworks that combine unaltered advertising images and documentary photographs to mine the symbolic terrain of advertising and mass media. These digital collages investigate how public images deploy explicit and implicit political content and structure the polity’s conception of civic life. They draw from some of the most prominent images in our culture. The Series appears where THINK AGAIN's public art interventions are distributed, and is documented in "A Brief History of Outrage," THINK AGAIN, 2003.
THINK AGAIN: The NAFTA Effect www.saltinthewound.org
THE NAFTA EFFECT: SALT IN THE WOUND (2005) is a guerrilla public projection that challenged anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy in response to the escalation of xenophobia in the years following 9/11. It drew attention to the debates surrounding immigration reform and the criminalization of undocumented workers. On the level of policy, THE NAFTA EFFECT: SALT IN THE WOUND highlighted how international treaties like NAFTA, in concert with national anti-immigration efforts such as a 700-mile border fence, insidiously reshape the ways that families live and work on both sides of the border. Roaming the streets of Los Angeles and Boston, the project articulated that xenophobia is not an effective "immigration, trade, diplomatic, ethical or security" policy. THINK AGAIN utilized the metaphor of salt to signify an aspect of human suffering and misery. “Rubbing salt in a wound” invokes the gratuitous infliction of misery on those in already grueling situations.
THINK AGAIN: Selected Early Work, 1997 - 2003
